Two years after my ignomious drop-out at Beaufort, it was time to tackle major unfinished business - the TDS, UTMB’s more rugged cousin. TDS runs from Courmayeur in clockwise direction to Chamonix, taking runners through Bourg Saint Maurice, Beaufort, Les Contamines and Les Houches, and some of the more remote reaches of the Mont Blanc area. Despite finishing in 2022, my brother had also signed up again for the race in what I can only describe as a severe hankering for punishment.
My preparation this time was hampered by a severe case of runner’s knee that I had caught during MIUT in April and that restricted me to bike training for several weeks during the summer. However, being in-between jobs allowed me to ramp up overall training time to 20-30h per week during June, so I felt reasonably well prepared. Doing a lot of exercises to counter runner’s knee had let to issues on the other side of the knee, but I expected to still be able to make it through almost 10k of vertical drop by using knee bandages, poles and, if everything else should fail, painkillers (those I took along mostly as mental backup, though).
After our experiences with in-town accommodations during UTMB 2023 (“sleeping” next to a club that closed at 5am) we took a bungalow a bit further outside, but still in comfortable 15-20min walking distance of the finish line (Chalet Chacaltaya, highly recommended!). Arriving in Chamonix mid-morning on race day gave us time to try and (unsuccessfully) catch some sleep in the afternoon, and then pack, unpack and re-pack our equipment several times before heading to the shuttle to Courmayeur at 10pm. Unfortunately, a sandwich and a coffee from La Gruyere’s rest station the day before didn’t sit well on my brother’s stomach, so he went into the race with severe GI issues which is typically seen as a bad omen in ultra runner circles.
We managed to get lost on our way to the shuttle by following similarly clueless competitors, and ended up being amongst the last 10 runners to board what seemed like the last bus to Courmayeur. There, we didn’t repeat 22’s mistake and went to the starting corral fairly early so as to not start 100m from the actual starting line.
At 10 to midnight, we were off again through the very narrow and crowded streets of Courmayeur. Crowding and limited visibility led to some unfortunate occurances, such as a runner crashing full throttle into a curbstone that probably ended his race right there, and someone losing her poles and then having to go back against a stream of 1800 runners to retrieve them.
From Courmayeur to Lac Combal
On the first major climb up to the Col Checrouit, we tried to keep an easy pace and refrain from running steep sections to overtake slower runners which, in the first kms of a 150km race is a strategy, but arguably not the best one. Two thirds up the climb my brother dedicded to drop back as his stomach was acting up. In 2022, we ran together almost until the Col Petit Saint Bernard, so this did not particularly bode well.
I came through Checrouit at almost exactly the same time as 2022 and continued without stopping at the aid station. So far it was all hike and run at a comfortable pace, with crowded trails preventing any kind of over-exertion. After 1200m of climbing, the first steep pole-supported downhill to Lac Combal went surprisingly well, with no indications of incoming knee troubles. I made an efficient stop to pick up water at Lac Combal aid station, and then continued the next 600m climb to the highest point of the course, the Col de Chavannes.
From Lac Combal to Col Petit Saint Bernard
On this big climb, I was again boxed in by other runners with no point in overtaking anybody as the next slower group would be just a couple of meters up ahead. I started chatting up one of the few other German runners who was doing the TDS the first time and shared some (probably) appreciated advice on the scarcity of aid station during upcoming sections. I would see him again just after Bourg Saint Maurice, noticing that my advice had gone unheeded.
At the Col de Chavannes at 2600m, I did a quick sit down (following Jim’s strategy) and put on my trusty knee bandage. From here down to La Thuile, the course had been altered slightly, and a section of runnable dirt road had been replaced by a steep grassy and muddy downhill - I don’t think many runners would have complained if the 2022 route had been kept. Still, most of the descent to La Thuile was on a fast dirt road where I also started to notice my feet for the first time.
We then started climbing again up to the Col Petit Saint Bernard, which has some pretty ugly kilometres just before the col with many false summits, ups and downs and finally a 35% degree 100m climb. I noticed that I had forgotten to eat my summit mini snickers, the first part of an elaborate nutrition strategy, at Col de Chavannes and tried to remedy the mistake on a narrow muddy trail while balancing my poles in one hand, only to drop the snickers while peeling it out of its wrapping. However, I had better luck with pulling forward the Saint Bernard snickers, so it wasn’t all game over nutrition-wise just yet.
From Col Petit Saint Bernard to Bourg Saint Maurice
I spent a couple of minutes at the Col aid station refilling my bottles and getting started on the second part of my elaborate fuelling strategy: Soup and crackers. I didn’t really plan it, but over the course of the race I subsisted only on gels, watermelon, soup and crackers, as nothing at the aid stations looked really appetizing and the appetizing stuff (Näak waffles) was already mostly gone when I arrived - good (junk) food is only available for the elites, it seems. I started walking downhill while having breakfast (soup and crackers, that is), and then picked up an easy pace.
I was still wearing the bandage which started to chafe slightly, but nothing too serious yet. As two years before, the sky started to brighten during the descent, but wooded sections still required a headlamp to navigate safely. And not too safely did I navigate them, as the last steep downhill was way more brutal than I remembered (probably a result of heavy rains washing out the trails some more), and I stumbled twice. But fortunately I ultimately made it through only with curses instead of crashes, and ran through the superfluous aid station at Saez which is just about 3km from the proper aid station in Bourg Maurice. TDS is pretty front-loaded in terms of aid stations.
In Bourg Saint Maurice, there was already a small crowd gathered in front of cafes, and as always it was tempting to ask someone whether they wanted to switch places. Having coffee and croissants was looking more attractive than about 100km and 7500m more climbing. I made it into the aid station 15 minutes faster than two years ago, but squandered most of my virtual lead on an extended bathroom break.
To the Passeur Pralongan
After refilling 3 bottles and figuring out that I actually had a good method to store a third filled bottle in one of my pockets by using my impromptu cap holder strap (I had not bothered to try this before), I started the monster 1900m climb up to Fort de la Platte and Passeur Pralongan. I again met the German runner from the Col de Chavannes who now thought that there would be two more aid stations between Bourg Saint Maurice and Cormet de Roselend. I had to set him straight that he mistook checkpoints for aid stations, but we fortunately passed a well trough that looked safe enough to pick up additional water. However, it turned out that this year there was actually another (unannounced) water refill station at Fort de la Platte, and not just a business-minded lady selling cans of soda for €5 a piece.
Climbing up to the fort, I started to put on suncreen and probably had my biggest screwup of the entire race: I had bought a lip balm/sunscreen lotion combo on a whim the day before as carrying an entire bottle of suncreen for half the race seemed excessive. However, I had not realized the combo as such, and thus I was a bit surprised when I screwed off the cap and encountered the lip balm consistency. Undeterred, I started covering my face in lip balm, but it quickly started running out, leaving me a bit puzzled at what I had spent €15 on. Then, I suddenly realized that the lip balm part could be unscrewed as well, revealing suncreen lotion. Cursing, I put lotion on top of the balm which resulted in a very icky feeling, but probably also an excessive amount of sun protection. Never do races with untested gear, and if it’s only sunscreen…
I took my time up to the fort and felt better than two years ago. I chatted up two Latvian guys, displaying my profound knowledge of Baltic flags and inquiring about training for mountain races in Latvia (the short answer was, you cannot). I would meet one of them again in Bellevue, so he turned out to be very fast for being from a pretty flat country. I continued to pace myself well and as I knew what the trail to the Passeur looked like, I could manage my own expectations and not get frustrated by the seemingly endless approach during which the Passeur only becomes visible on the last 50 metres.
Over the hills and far away to Beaufort
At the Passeur, it was bandage time again, and then I tackled the most dangerous section of the course. Again, this was not too tricky although there were people coming up at the same time carrying a bunch of annoyed looking dogs.
It was smooth running to Cormet where I just quickly picked up soup and crackers and then continued over the next Col down to La Gittaz. To my surprise, I was running 10 minutes behind my 2022 time at Roselend and tried to make up the difference on the long downhill to La Gittaz. I managed to shorten the virtual gap to 5 minutes, but still felt way better than during my previous attempt where motivation was starting to vaporize around La Gittaz.
At the La Gittaz aid station, there was a bit of a kerfuffle with another runner who took my spot on a bench amidst my belongings while I was away to get water (as always I had to unpack pretty much everything to refill my bottles), but we sorted it out without coming to blows, and even wished each other a good race when leaving the aid station.
The next uphill past Entre deux Nants felt endless, and the guy I took my 27h timetable from had really weird splits on this section. He arrived at the same time in La Gittaz, but then drew ahead by 40mins to Beaufort, with a completely unrealistic time to Entre deux Nants (about half the time it took me to get there).
I considered putting on my bandage again when the undulating trail to the Pas D’Outray started, but decided against it which, in hindsight, wasn’t the best choice as the boulder-strewn uneven ground isn’t the most knee-friendly terrain. I managed to reach Pas D’Outray 1 minute ahead of my 2022 time where the wheels had completely come off by then and the DNF had already been decided. I was banking on getting water at the pass, but the only water source was marked with big warning signs, and the mountain rescue guys did not look like they would vouch for water quality. I had also foregone the water offered by some race volunteers a couple of km earlier which was marked as “untested water” as I only carried a handful of GI pills and didn’t want to force an emergency toilet break.
So I started the 1400m descent into Beaufort a bit dry, but in good spirits. I was running quite smoothly, and there were no signs of knee troubles thanks to the bandage, poles and putting on the brakes a bit more than usual. For the last section, I still took no chances and slowed down a bit more to stay behind a runner also sporting a knee bandage. The last stretch of the course was a bit different from 2022, but still fairly annoying - we passed a sign saying “Beaufort 1.5km”, then ran for 1.5km, and then ended up at another sign saying “Beaufort 1.5km”.
Due to not paying too much attention I created a potentially race ending moment just 2km before Beaufort: I managed to trip and then somehow step onto my right foot with my left one, hitting the big toe that had given me a lot of trouble for some weeks now. I was reduced to hobbling for a minute while I tried to figure out whether something had snapped, but then the pain subsided somewhat and I decided that Beaufort wouldn’t be the end for me this time around.
I came into Beaufort aid station at 16:25, 26 mins ahead of my 2022 time, but back then I had also lost about 10mins when I got lost at an unmarked intersection. Spirits were high, but my stop was not particularly efficient. Even getting soup was difficult, as the lady standing in front of the soup pot couldn’t for the life of hers figure out what I was asking of her while holding an empty cup and pointing at the soup and asking for “soup, bouillon, sopa, Suppe”. I even lost a couple of minutes when I couldn’t locate the proper exit at first and tried exiting through the crew assistance entrance.
The race begins in earnest - into the second night and over to Les Contamines
I had been feeling a bit nauseous the entire day which probably also limited my aid station appetite and kept me confined to tried and tested GU and Powerbar gels. While I started to feel better as temperatures started to fall, the climb to Hautelouce was definitely no highlight as we trekked through steep and dense woods. Towards the end, I latched on to a runner who still did some running on flatter sections, which probably was a bad idea, as after the Hautelouce aid station I had to start walking the flats as putting in a bit more effort seemed to cause more nausea.
I had likely depleted all readily available glycogen reserves by now, and was living from gel to gel. I could start to set my watch by bonks which would occur every 45mins unless I took a gel just in time.
Most of the climb up to the Barrage de La Girotte, a pretty reservoir, was again in the woods, but the woods gave way to pretty meadows higher up. The views of the lake were also very nice. On the climb, I tried to get my entertainment system (a MP3 player from the early 10’s) going, but as in Madeira it failed to connect to my headphones - entertainment thus had to come from elsewhere.
When we started running around the lake on a meandering but scenic route, I noticed that some of the trail signs were calling out names that sounded familiar, but fortunately I only learned later when consulting my Strava track that at 8pm I was actually only a couple of kilometers from where I had been at about 2pm after La Gittaz. From a pure “Getting from Courmayeur to Chamonix” perspective, the Beaufort loop seems pretty unneccessary.
The sunset above the lake made me take out my phone for a picture for the first and only time during the race, but it’s definitely moments like this that make the entire enterprise worth it.
I reached the next aid station, which was not quite were it was supposed to be, 3.30h after Hautelouce, which is the typical distance between aid stations at TDS except for the pointless ones at Saez and Checrouit. It got dark enough to require a headlamp, and we were told that the next aid station was only 7km and 300m of climbing away - less than one hour in fresh conditions. However, the terrain was really bad, and we had to scramble over large boulders and through rock screwn goat pens just to hit a random pass at 2200m in the darkness, and then drop down again on gravel roads amidst skiing slopes to Remontée le Signal, a large mountain hut. I have no idea how this section would have been safe to cross during 2023 winter edition of the TDS. I had fortunately entered the “this is ridiculous” mindset by now and could smile in disbelief at the steepness and ruggedness.
I reached the hut about 1.30h after the last aid station, grabbed soup and crackers and then continued down into the gorge to the aptly named church of Notre Dame de la Gorge.
What followed was again a fairly long downhill with 700m of descent and a very rocky and rooty section towards the end. Then, we ran for a couple of kilometers on flat dirt roads. “Helpful” spectators were giving wrong directions as always, calling out that it was only 3km to go to Les Contamines. While this was technically correct when talking about the town entrance, the aid station was actually at the other end of the town, 5km out.
One (or 3) last climb(s) - from Les Contamines back to Chamonix
The Les Contamines stop was pretty bad - I sat outside in the cold and could not find any food that looked palatable. When I got going again I immediately started shivering violently when existing the open supporter tent, and hence doubled back in to put on my long sleeve shirt. This helped, and I started to feel warm again after a couple of minutes of climbing.
We now headed up a steep climb first to the Alpage de Tricot, then dropped back down into a valley, only to climb up again to the Col de Tricot. After that, we would descent again and finally climb up to Bellevue aid station. Fortunately, I did not know yet that it would take me 4h to get there, otherwise I might not have tackled the climb with similar vigour.
After the Alpage, I saw the Col from afar, but couldn’t believe that this was actually where we were going as it looked too high up. But moving lights in the mountains shortly after midnight were a pretty good indication that this was were I was supposed to go. On the climb to the Col, I was running very low on energy, but could still maintain a respectable hiking pace, at least respectable considering that I had been in this race for more than 24h now. Places I made good at this point were mainly due to other people taking a nap, rather than my absolute speed, though.
I reached the Col at 1:50am, and must have looked like Death due to calorie depletion - a race medic took an entirely unwanted interest in me until I convinced him in my best broken French that all was well, that I was just a bit hungry, that I had enough gels to last me a lifetime or two, and that I did not want to buy his carpet, please. He let me go after one minute, and I took care to sit down outside of his view to put on my trusty bandage for the last time today.
The next downhill was gnarly, and as if that wasn’t bad enough the race had added an additional 300m climb back up to Bellevue, instead of crossing over earlier at higher altitude. Downhill was still working surprisingly well, though, with my runner’s knee not even making a cameo appearance. And we started to see the lights in Chamonix valley which also was very uplifting.
At this point, runners started to cheer each other on (or they were talking to themselves), and I made surprisingly short work of the race’s final climb up to Bellevue. I did a quick sit at Bellevue to fill up on Coke and water, and then let it rip for the last downhill to Les Houches. I didn’t pull any punches anymore as I knew that whatever happened now, I could still crawl into Chamonix in time. I probably clocked my fastest km of the entire race on this section.
At Les Houches, a very plesant surprise was waiting for me at 4:10am: My Brother had come out to meet me, “returning the favor” from 2022 when I had met him there at a way more reasonable time around 10am (no meeting Pau Capell on a training run for me, though). My brother had dropped out at Col Petit Saint Bernard after not being able to keep any kind of food down - to this day he claims that this was the revenge of the Gruyere sandwich from Gruyere rest station (somewhat doubtful as I had the same).
I spent too long trying to get an oversized piece of watermelon down that I did not want to throw away unfinished while 4 enthusiastic volunteers were watching me. Then, the jog-hike to Chamonix for the last 8km started.
The calorie deficit was kicking in big time, and my last gels were all caffeinated, so I decided that I would rather walk than risk not being able to sleep in 1 or 2 hours. Turns out that this tactical decision cost me 6 places in the end who all overtook me and finished just a couple of minutes ahead of me.
A couple of other problematic areas started to pop up during this stretch, namely the feet and the stomach, but on the victory lap to Chamonix these were just minor annoyances. In Chamonix downtown, the streets were understandably deserted at 5am, but a lone spectator told me to smile as I had almost completed TDS - I told him truthfully that I was closer to crying right now.
I turned into the home stretch and this time actually ran through the iconic arch instead of walking at a leisurely 3km/h, eradicating the memory of my shameful 2022 TDS DNF, and completing the “triple” of CCC, TDS and UTMB. It took me a bit to find my way out of the finisher area, and then I picked up my well-deserved finisher vest which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment - I had hoped for a revamp of the 2022 baby blue Hoka fleece vest, but got a brown/dark blue fleece/downs chimaera monstrosity.
At the finish, I had probably been awake my longest time ever with close to 48h, but I surprisingly felt OK, with absolutely no hallucinations or brain fog. However, I was badly jet lagged for a couple of days, waking up at 4am and becoming narcoleptic around 7pm. The TDS took me 29:33h, well below my B goal of 30 hours and not too far off the A goal of 27h, and I finished 139th out of around 1800 starters.
And with that, I’m probably ending my racing chapter of 2-nighter races, but I might pay Chamonix another visit during UTMB week to complete the “quadruple” with OCC (mainly because they also hand out vests).
Should you aim for a sub-30h finish at TDS, here’s one way to do it:
